GUILDERLAND — The town’s zoning board heard preliminary plans last Wednesday for Jeff Thomas’s proposed senior-housing complex on Brandle Road.

The complex, to be called Brandle Meadows, will now be examined by town-designated Boswell Engineering before the zoning board discusses it further.

Several residents spoke in favor of the project and two raised concerns about how it will impact their water supply.

Thomas has other hurdles to overcome with his project, such as the resolution of a conflict between the village of Altamont — which promised him water — and the couple that agreed to sell their land, with wells, to the village.

Supported project

The senior-housing complex will be on 14.6 acres on rural Brandle Road, near the Altamont fairgrounds and Altamont Elementary School. Thomas purchased the land from the Altamont Fair, for $250,000.
Francis Bossolini, Thomas’s civil engineer, told the zoning board last Wednesday that Brandle Meadows will have 72 living units in eight buildings, the maximum allowed by the zoning law. The buildings will be designed to have a "Victorian feel," Bossolini said.

The project will include several detached garage buildings with 72 parking spaces. It will also have a gathering center, a swimming pool, walking trails, and a community garden area.

Over 60 percent of the area will be kept as green space. This undeveloped land will be owned by a homeowners’ association and kept forever wild, Bossolini said.

Brandle Meadows will not generate much traffic since most senior citizens are retired, he said.

Four elderly residents, including former Altamont Mayor Paul DeSarbo, told the board they support the project.
"I believe in this very much for our seniors," DeSarbo said. "...I’m very much in support of this project."

Town Supervisor Kenneth Runion had said earlier that the town’s granting Thomas a re-zone for his project was strongly based on DeSarbo’s promise last year of village water for the project. DeSarbo was then ousted in the November election.
Arnold Rothstein, the outgoing board co-president of Community Caregivers, said he supports the project not only because it is a good one, but for "self interest."

Thomas had earlier promised the not-for-profit organization a large office in his housing complex. Community Caregivers recruits volunteers who, among other good deeds, assist elderly residents with such chores as shopping, cleaning, and going to medical appointments.

Conflict and concerns

Michael and Nancy Trumpler own land on rural Brandle Road outside the village where Altamont drilled and found water. The Trumplers signed a contract last year agreeing to sell about five acres, with the wells, to the village.

A few months later, the Guilderland Town Board re-zoned land on Brandle Road, just outside the village, for Thomas to build a senior housing complex.

Thomas’s plans at the time — to develop his 14.6 acres with 80 housing units — represented a tenfold density increase over what would have been allowed in an agricultural district. The town board approved the re-zone last July at the same meeting it also approved a moratorium on building in the rural western part of Guilderland.

The village promised Thomas water then, even though it had a moratorium on granting water outside village limits. The commitment was made over the objections of the village-hired engineer and the superintendent of public works.

The Trumplers were upset because earlier they had to scale back plans for a place for Nancy Trumpler’s elderly mother to live because the town restricted building in an agricultural district. They also said they had been told that the wells on their land would be used only for water in the village, not for an outside developer, and they had procedural concerns.

In March, the Trumplers filed papers in Albany County Supreme Court to have a judge decide whether the village’s contract for the five-acre site is legal and binding; they sought no money from the village.

The village responded by filing counterclaims, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, against the Trumplers. E. Guy Roemer, the village’s attorney, told The Enterprise earlier that the counterclaims were to enforce the contract and for damages due to the delay and increased costs to the village.

Roemer is being paid $125 per hour to defend the village against the Trumplers’ suit. The village board last month authorized up to $10,000 for the litigation costs.
In June, Thomas sued the Trumplers for $17 million, over what he called the "tortuous interference" with his plans to build a senior-housing project. His lawyer said the suit was not over money; Thomas just wanted the Trumplers to drop their suit.
The Trumplers’ lawyer, Michael Englert, said Thomas filed the lawsuit for "retaliation against to seek direction on the option agreement," which he believes is invalid.

Last month, the village came before the zoning board with its proposal to pump water from two wells on the property it purchased from the Trumplers.

Some Brandle Road residents said at that meeting that, since the village has done exploratory drilling, they’ve had problems with dirty water.

Altamont Mayor James Gaughan told The Enterprise last week that, when concerns were first raised, "I asked the engineers to look at bench-marking and monitoring."
Gaughan writes in the Enterprise opinion pages this week that "in-house findings" have shown no evident connection between problems with private wells on Brandle Road and the village well-drilling. He would like the village to hire an independent testing lab for analysis and to provide a follow-up study.

At last month’s meeting, the zoning board hired a town-designated engineer to study the effects that new village wells have on the quality and quantity of neighbors’ wells.

The village’s proposal still needs planning board approval as well.

Dan and Christine Capuano, Nancy Trumpler’s brother and sister-in-law, spoke at the last zoning board meeting and this one. The Capuanos live on land near the project site.
"I’m not against senior housing...but we need to know these folks will not have their wells go dry," Dan Capuano said of he and his neighbors on Brandle Road.

Chairman Bryan Clenahan assured Capuano that the water issue will be resolved. Perhaps not in this application, he said, but in the village’s proposal.

Thomas’s proposed senior complex is for residents age 55 and over, Capuano went on. Many of these people are still active, he said. The project will cause additional traffic on quiet Brandle Road, he said.

The board then designated an engineer to study several areas of the plan, including traffic.

Other business

In other business, the board:

— Granted a variance to Bruce Gottlieb, of 412 Pinkster Lane, to allow a fence in his front yard, on a corner lot;

— Granted a special-use permit to Adrian Uribe, of 6212 Foundry Road, to construct an in-ground pool within 30 feet of a creek;

— Granted a variance and a special-use permit to Adirondack Tire, of 1610 Western Ave., to use a building as a retail tire and repair shop; and

— Granted a variance to R&T Contractors, of 2089 Old State Road, to build a garage in a side yard.